Toast Season 2 #8

Since Sunday Toast last hit the cyber streets Pompey fans have had a bad time with ten goals shipped without reply and numerous injuries picked up. Well Toast is back to attempt to cheer you all up.

We had planned to look at the 6-0 defeats in recent times but that went in the bin after Wednesday night and we decided to look back and show you all that things are not that bad. To do that we are going to back you back 50 years to December 1958.

Pompey on the back of three narrow defeats went to newly promoted West Ham just before Christmas and suffered a 6-0 thrashing. The festive programme gave Pompey two games with Champions to be Wolves and boy did they struggle. At Fratton Park on Boxing Day Pompey did manage three goals including a rare effort from Jimmy Dickinson but Wolves replied with five of their own. The next day at Molineux things got a whole lot worse with Wolves scoring an unanswered seven!! Three games in seven days and eighteen goals conceded.

Pompey went twenty four league games and picked up only four points. From a mid table position they plummeted to the bottom and were relegated conceding 112 goals. They let in four or more goals on ten occasions. Now are things that bad?

Meanwhile UEFA opponents Vitoria lost 2-0 at home to Nacional de Madeira on Monday night and had two players, Sereno and Gregory, sent off in second half.

Farewell UEFA Cup

So this is the last ever UEFA Cup in the current format. Uefa's executive committee, meeting in Bordeaux last week made a few key decisions. The first, concerned Europe's number two club competition which is in for a major overhaul.

Firstly it is to be renamed the UEFA Europa League as of 2009-10 when a new group stage system will be introduced to mirror the Champions League format. Secondly to match UEFA' s aim of making the cup for winners, the FA Cup runners up will no longer qualify if the winners have already gained entry to the Champions League. In recent seasons before Pompey won in May quite a number of clubs had entered the competition by that route.

Other decisions made were to increase the number of finalists are the European championship finals to 24 starting in 2016 which might help countries such as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland qualify; and increase England's chances. The next finals are due to be shared between Poland and Ukraine but UEFA are concerned whether the Ukrainian infrastructure is up to the job.

UEFA are allowing the former Soviet country to press ahead but they face a huge task in upgrading stadiums and overhauling roads. Germany are being touted as a possible late stand in.

Birthdays

29th September Paul Cahill will be 53; the tough tacking Scouser came from Coventry in the bad days of the mid 70s. Paul played 97times for Pompey scoring twice. At home to Exeter in February 1978 Paul scored for both sides in a 1-1 draw. After brief spells at Aldershot, Tranmere and Stockport Paul went to play his football in the USA. Must have been a Liverpool lad our Paul his middle name - Gerrard!

Andy Petterson is 39 - Now how many spells did Andy have at Pompey? Well it was only two although he seemed to have been around for ages at the turn of the century, the Aussie keeper just played 32 times

30th September A regular Vital Pompey member asked the other day who shares my birthday? I do hope it is someone famous. Well there are two different characters who share that day as Mick Tait will be 52 and Sammy Igoe 33.

Toast ran a special on Mick Tait earlier in the year which can be viewed here

Sammy Igoe is of course still playing and is now at his eighth club, Bournemouth. Another player who was at Pompey during a barren spell. The midfield midget always claims his favourite game was the 3-1 win at Bradford City that saved Pompey from relegation in May 1998. Sammy scored one of the goals that day and eleven in total in 160 games.

Alex Totten 32 YTS played four times in 1994 and then moved on to Bognor.

3rd October is the 91st anniversary of the birth of Duggie Reid - what can be said about this total Pompey legend? Toast is planning a special feature on Duggie and perhaps some other stars of yesterday in the weeks ahead. There are so many stories about Duggie you could fill several books about not only his goals but also his times looking after the Pompey apprentices and then his beloved pitch.

Jimmy Brown will be 55 - remembered for the cameo role he played in the fourth promotion campaign of 1980. Quickly became a fans favourite but could not win a long term contract. Vincent Pericard 26 - Vincent scored his first goal for Stoke against Reading in the week.

That was never a goal ref!!

The tremors surrounding the goal that Stuart Attwell awarded at Vicarage Road last Saturday will take some time to die down and quite rightly so. In these days of mass television coverage these incidents must not be allowed to go without some form of intervention from the relevant authorities. I admit a line has to be drawn somewhere but the game must get its act together quickly.

It is of course not the first time such things have happened and reading this weeks press Toast is reminded of a day when two wrongs did definitely not make a right. We have to go back exactly thirty eight years to 26th September 1970 when the cameras caught one incident, missed another and there were strange results all over country.

The TV cameras were at Stamford Bridge that day when Chelsea took on Ipswich Town in a First Division game. Alan Hudson took a shot that missed the post and rebounded back into play off the outside stanchion of the goal. As the Ipswich goalkeeper, which was either David Best or Laurie Sivell (memory fading I'm afraid) prepared to take the goal - kick referee Roy Capey went over to consult his linesman and to the disbelief of all in the ground awarded a goal. TV replays and pictures in the Sunday press showed clearly that it was a wrong decision. Chelsea won 2-1.

Meanwhile, 90 miles to the north, Eastneydave was stood on the terraces of Filbert Street watching his beloved Pompey. Sorry, Filbert Street was the home of Leicester City. At about the same time as Hudson was 'scoring' for Chelsea, Nicky Jennings was crossing for Jim Storrie to head beyond keeper Peter Shilton and into the top corner of the net. The ball hit the V stanchion, that Leicester pioneered, before coming back into play. The referee waved play on. Dave was stood side on and had a great view and said the ball clearly crossed the line and the most disappointing thing was that Pompey were playing well against a top team and could have got a result. We lost 2-0 but there were no TV cameras or press photos captured of the episode.

Strange results were in abundance that day, Arsenal who won the double that season lost 5-0 at Stoke City, Southampton beat Liverpool 1-0, and Bolton lost at home to Oxford United 2-0. Just to show how life changes, that day Aston Villa won 3-2 at Wrexham.

Have a good trip all

Finally, as some of you head off for the sunny climes of North Portugal, a couple of snippets of useful information. To start with the game now kicks off at 9.35 both local and UK time. If you plan on watching the game in a local pub in this country make sure the landlord is prepared for a possible late night. If it goes to penalties it might not finish until nearly 12.30!!

That of course will be in the hands of the referee who this time is from Turkey. His name is Selcuk Dereli, a Physical Education teacher who speaks English as well as his native tongue. He has been an international referee for nearly six years and has refereed a couple of famous games in his 25 match career.

The first was the Euro 2008 qualifier between San Marino and Germany which the Germans won by a record score of 13-0. He was also in charge when Celtic took on Artmedia in Slovakia in the Champions League qualifiers of 2005/06. Celtic thought they had a great chance of making the group stages but were thumped 5-0. Famously they almost recovered winning 4-0 at Celtic Park.

Another possible record is the sixteen minutes he added at the end of the Denizlispor-Fenerbahce games game in 2006. Fenerbahce had to win the game to win the Turkish title - they didn't, it finished as a 1-1 draw. The point saved Denizli from relegation and Galatasaray were crowned champions.

Selcuk's record shows that he issues almost five yellow cards a game but has never awarded a penalty to the home side in all his international games! If you want to learn more why visit his own website SelcukDereli.com. Mind you it is in Turkish!!

A Toast Teaser

Who is the only current Pompey player to have played for the club in the 1990s?

Comments

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Toast, I really didn't like hearing about the last time Pompey lost 6-0, I thought you were going to cheer me up! You are right of course, we are in a far better place now. Tomorrow, I just know we are going to beat Spurs. Don't ask how I know, I just do!